Justice Ginsburg: A clean bill of health

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who has twice survived cancer and is regularly subject to speculation about her retirement plans, said Thursday she recently received a clean bill of health.

Ginsburg, 78, in response to a question from USA TODAY, said she recently underwent her annual checkup and was in good health.

The eldest of the nine justices, Ginsburg has repeatedly vowed to stay on the bench through the 2012 presidential election and a few years after that. Yet rumors of a possible retirement continue to swirl, because of her past health problems and because of presidential politics.

The president makes lifetime appointments to the federal bench, and the stakes for the Supreme Court tend to be heightened during an election season.

Harvard Law professor Randall Kennedy wrote in The New Republic magazine last spring that Ginsburg should retire soon to ensure that Democratic President Obama, rather than a possible new GOP president, could appoint her successor. (Kennedy said Stephen Breyer, 73, should also retire.)

Ginsburg has said she at least wants to match the tenure of Justice Louis Brandeis, who retired at age 82 in 1939. That would get her to 2015.

The current Supreme Court, deeply split along ideological lines, is facing a slew of significant cases through mid-2012, including on the constitutionality of the Obama-sponsored health care law.

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About David Jackson

David's journalism career spans three decades, including coverage of five presidential elections, the Oklahoma City bombing, the 2000 Florida presidential recount and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He has covered the White House for USA TODAY since 2005. His interests include history, politics, books, movies and college football -- not necessarily in that order. More about David